LUCAMA — When Joey Kirby cuts the wheat at Bass Farms, he expects to produce about 70 bushels an acre.

That is better than the 50 or 55 bushels that farmers would expect in a normal year, but still there will be little if any profit.

Low commodity prices and high costs of inputs like fertilizer and fuel will eat away at any gains made from the good harvest.

“The harvest is really good this year because in the last couple years past, we have had a really wet winter and wheat doesn’t do very well when you have a lot of water on it,” Kirby said. “This year, we have had a good growing season and it was dry during the winter, and we could use a little more water in the end, but it has still been a good harvest.”

It is likely that the wheat harvested on this farm and others in Wilson County will be used in feed for animals.

“The prices are still not that great because they are only paying the corn price,” Kirby said. “We had some really good test weight, but they are not paying you for it, so it doesn’t make any difference.”

Norman Harrell, director of Wilson’s North Carolina Cooperative Extension office, said Wilson County had 7,919 wheat acres in 2021-22.  In 2020-21, the county had 9,308 wheat acres.

Harrell said that Wilson’s wheat gets planted in October and December and grows through the winter months before harvest in the spring.

“We had a great winter for wheat,” Harrell said.

Most if not all of Wilson County’s wheat will be soft red winter wheat.

Nikki Johnson, executive director of the North Carolina Small Grain Association, said North Carolina doesn’t export any wheat.

As a non-exporter of wheat, N.C. farmers won’t see any benefits from the increases in wheat prices globally caused by the war between Ukraine and Russia. Both countries are large exporters of wheat and other grains, and those exports have been cut short by the conflict.

Another factor in the global wheat shortage is India, the second-largest wheat exporter, where lack of rain has prevented the country from producing a good crop.

“I do think the wheat market has already been affected because those countries are major suppliers of wheat globally,” Johnson said. “With the uncertainty of the war, this has created a volatile market for wheat because the supply is being threatened, thus driving prices up because the demand is up. All the while, input costs to even grow the crop, such as fertilizer and fuel, have nearly tripled. So while the price of wheat is the highest it’s ever been, farmers still may not see a profit or just break even because of these high input costs.”

Johnson said that North Carolina is “a unique state in that we are outnumbered by livestock.”

Some 80% of the wheat grown in the state is made for animal feed and only 20% is milled for human consumption, Johnson said.

“The wheat used for animal feed is a lower grade with less quality specifications than milling wheat,” Johnson said. “Thus buyers will base animal feed wheat off of corn, which is also used for animal feed in N.C.”

Harrell said these extremely dry conditions right now might be good for wheat, but they are hurting all the other crops.

“Most crops are just kind of hunkering down right now,” Harrell said. “They are minimizing growth, trying to conserve water. The crop that is really facing problems right now is corn. Corn is beginning to tassel, and that means we are going to be very close to pollinating the ear. And if we are this hot and dry, we will have very poor pollination of the corn, so we are certainly looking at an impact on corn.”